


The Right Wrong Number

by giselleslash



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Coffee Shops, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Insecurity, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Original Character(s), Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Wrong number
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9393707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giselleslash/pseuds/giselleslash
Summary: Steve's one night stand blows him off with a wrong number, which just happens to be Bucky's number...





	

Steve woke up as the bed dipped when the body next to him got up.

“You leaving?” Steve asked.

Brayden jumped slightly at Steve’s voice. “Uh, yeah. Work tomorrow.”

Steve sat up and watched him pull on his jeans in the dim light coming in through the window from the streetlights outside. A bad feeling settled in his gut

“Could I get your number?” Steve asked as he picked up his cell from the bedside table.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” 

Steve typed in the numbers as he rattled them off. When he was done he set the phone aside and looked back over at Brayden as he hovered near the open doorway. 

“So. I’ll just be heading off then,” he said as he waved his hand at the hallway. 

“Yeah, okay,” Steve said. “Talk to you later?”

“Absolutely. Call me.”

Steve didn’t want to think about how quickly he took off after his half-hearted order to call him. He flopped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. 

He hadn’t meant it to be a one night stand, but he had the definite feeling that was exactly what it was.

 

~*~

 

Steve sat in his office Friday morning and looked at his cell. Brayden’s name was written across the screen and Steve’s thumb was hovering over the call button. 

He was waffling. He knew he was waffling but he couldn’t help it. He’d had a bad feeling ever since Brayden almost ran from his bed and it had taken nearly the entire week to muster up the courage to pull up his name on his phone. 

“Oh, fuck it.”

Steve pressed the call button.

The phone rang several times and Steve was just about to hang up when a harried voice answered.

“Yeah. Hey, hi.”

“Brayden?” Steve asked.

“Nope, this is Bucky, I think you have the wrong number. Or the wrong name, not sure, are you definitely looking for Brayden, or is the writing smudged and you’re actually looking for me? Brayden, Bucky, both start with B’s.”

“Ah, yeah, you’re right about that. Well done.” 

“I’ve always been pretty smart,” Bucky said.

Steve laughed, it was a bit of a manic laugh, but it was a laugh just the same.

“You’re pretty talkative for a wrong number, because you are definitely a wrong number. I was looking for Brayden,” Steve said.

“Well that’s unfortunate, I was hoping you were looking for me. I needed a distraction and here you were, a gift from the, well, I don’t know what, the distraction gods? Is that a thing?”

“I doubt it.”

“Shit. You’d think that’d be a thing, wouldn’t you? There’s a god for everything else.”

“You’d think, yeah.”

“So you’re definitely looking for Brayden, not Bucky?” Bucky asked. “Because I’m going sorta crazy here, deadlines and all, and you’d be saving me from what is rapidly becoming a downward spiral into insanity. I’ve contemplated calling my friend Natasha, and if you knew Nat you’d know my desperation is profound.”

“She sounds delightful.” Steve smiled.

“Well, she’s not. She’s been named People magazine’s Most Irritating and Smug six years running, it would be thirty years running, a title she’s held from birth, but she was knocked down to second place in 2010 by my friend Clint who decided 2010 was the year he’d hook Bucky up with all the gay men he has ever known. Bucky did not enjoy 2010.”

“Poor Bucky.”

“I know, it was a tragedy, but I persevered only to be led to this day— “

“The day of your mental decay.”

“Exactly,” Bucky agreed. 

Steve found himself smiling again, and while he could feel pangs of embarrassment and anger still bubbling in his gut, at least he wasn’t in the process of throwing his phone across his office and shouting for Darcy to bring him her stash of desk alcohol at ten in the morning. 

“So how about this,” Bucky continued. “We’ll roleplay. I’ll be Brayden, and you can be you— “

“Steve.”

“What?”

“Steve. I’ll be Steve,” Steve stumbled over his words. “I mean I’m Steve, that’s my name.”

“Awesome, I’ll be Brayden and you’ll be Steve and we’ll have the conversation you were going to have with him. Okay?”

“I’d rather not, actually.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not a wrong number.”

“But you said I was.”

“Well, you _are_ a wrong number in the sense that Brayden blew me off after a rather mediocre fuck, now that I look back on it, by giving me the wrong number. _Your_ number, which, while technically not wrong for you, is wrong for me.”

“I think I actually understood that answer,” Bucky said.

“You said you were smart.”

“I did. And I’ve got to say, pal, Brayden sounds like a first class douche canoe. You’re better off being rid of him.”

“But it’s all still pretty fucking humiliating.”

“Oh yeah, without a doubt, totally humiliating,” Bucky agreed.

“You’re not helping matters.”

“But just think, better rid of him now than ten shitty dates later. That’s a hell of a time-saver there.”

Steve laughed. “True.”

“See, it all worked out in the end,” Bucky said. “And with the added bonus of distracting me after all, so thanks for that.”

“Glad I could be of service.”

“I’ll still probably call Nat though.”

Steve laughed again, even louder than before.

“She’s the literal worst,” Bucky said. “But there’s a layer of slightly less worse underneath it. Plus she happens to be my favorite person in all of existence, so there’s that too.”

“Are you sure you haven’t already gone mental?” Steve asked.

“Possibly, Steve, you just never know.”

There was a couple of moments of silence, well, Steve could hear Bucky banging around what sounded like coffee mugs, but other than that they didn’t talk. And it was strangely not awkward or weird.

“Well, I guess I should probably let you go,” Steve said when it appeared as if Bucky wasn’t going to say anything anytime soon. “I have to get back to work.”

“Really?” Bucky sounded disappointed. “I was just about to make some coffee, we could’ve had some together.”

“Maybe next time,” Steve said without thinking.

“Next time you dial a wrong number?”

“Definitely. Keep a mug ready for me.”

“I will,” Bucky said. “Take care of yourself, Steve.”

“You too.”

Steve ended the call and set his phone aside, but for some reason he couldn’t get back to work until he picked it back up again and changed ‘Brayden’ to ‘Bucky’.

 

~*~

 

Steve made it through the rest of Friday and the weekend only thinking about Bucky a handful of times.

Well, maybe ten times. Or fifteen? Was that considered a handful?

Steve didn’t know, he only knew that it was probably even more pathetic to think about a wrong number than it was to be given a wrong number by a one night stand trying to blow you off. He was fairly certain his dignity was in the toilet by Sunday evening when he was seriously contemplating calling Bucky back, he’d even done the thumb hover until he’d finally switched off his phone in an effort to stop the madness.

But Monday rolled around, work distracted him, and pretty soon it was the middle of the week and he hadn’t thought about Bucky at all in the last day or two when his cell rang.

_Bucky_.

Steve looked at the phone and wondered if maybe he hadn’t gone just a tiny bit crazy over the course of the last week. Maybe all of his thoughts about Bucky had thrown him into some sort of fugue state that had manifested itself in the form of a delusional phone call. 

“Hello?”

“Steve? Hey, it’s Bucky. Or Brayden, whichever, I’m the wrong-slash-right phone number guy?”

“Yeah, yeah, Bucky, I remember.”

“Excellent, I’m glad you did because I was doing a really shitty job at reminding you.”

“I wouldn’t say it was _totally_ shitty,” Steve said.

“Well you’re in a gracious mood today.”

“You caught me at a good time. Usually I’m a terrible person to be around, and I would’ve berated you. Probably would’ve made you cry.”

Bucky laughed and Steve loved the sound of it.

“I don’t know if I should tell you that I think I find the idea of that sexy,” Bucky said.

“The crying part too? You’re a troubled human being, aren’t you?”

Bucky laughed again and behind all of that Steve could hear that familiar banging of mugs that he’d heard the last time. 

“Wanna share a cup of coffee with a troubled human being?” Bucky asked. “You did say next time.”

“Well that was when I didn’t think there’d be a next time,” Steve said. “I was sort of giving you the blow off, if I’m being honest here.”

“You really are heartless, aren’t you? No wonder Brayden gave you the wrong number.”

“Oh, low blow, man. Low blow.” Steve pretended to be wounded, but he kind of loved Bucky’s straightforwardness. They might as well joke about it, that was definitely preferable to being depressed over it.

“Fuck, did I cross the line? Sometimes I cross the line.”

“No, no don’t worry about it,” Steve said. “It’s better I laugh about it than cry about it.”

“Because that would be pathetic.”

“Exactly.”

“So,” Bucky said. “The reason I called, and for the record, caller ID is a fantastic thing, isn’t it?”

“Especially for stalkers.”

“Oh, now see, Steve, that was a good way to get me back for my rude comments. Good for you.” Steve couldn’t help but laugh. “So anyway, I called to, of course, stalk you, that’s the first thing, and second, I called because I’m in need of another distraction and since you did such a good job of it last time I thought I’d give you another try.”

“I’m not quite sure what I did exactly,” Steve said.

“You were interesting.”

“I was pathetic.”

“Yes, that too,” Bucky said agreeably. “But you were also interesting. Usually wrong numbers are all brisk and sorry and then there’s a fast hang up, but you? You stayed on the line and shared your patheticness with me, thus distracting me.”

“I’m glad my pain was useful for something.”

“Like I said before, you’re better off without him. Brayden is an asshole, and really _he’s_ the pathetic one. I mean if he had any balls at all he’d have just said: Steve, this is a one night stand, no need to give you my number because you clearly no longer need the services of my mediocre dick. But instead you get a coward who takes the easy way out.”

“I like where this is going,” Steve said.

“Well, really, the Braydens of the world shouldn’t have any power over the Steves of the world. Don’t let the shit drag you down.”

“The Steves of the world, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “The good people.”

“How do you know I’m good people?”

“I can just tell, your voice belongs to a good person.”

Steve wanted to tell Bucky that was the nicest thing anyone had said to him in a long time, but he settled for, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

They fell into another moment of comfortable silence like they had the first time they talked and Steve got up to go into the break room and get a cup of coffee. 

He’d promised after all. 

 

~*~

 

Steve had a coffee with Bucky as they talked for another thirty minutes until Darcy popped her head into his office to see if he’d died suddenly, or had a seizure of some kind. She’d thrown a stack of post-its at his head when she found him sitting on his lazy ass drinking coffee and chatting on the phone.

Steve had no regrets, though, the conversation he had with Bucky was one of the best he could remember having in a long time. Toward the end of the conversation Bucky had apologized for being so chatty, and scattered.

“I’m not normally like this,” he said, “but whenever I get this close to a deadline I get pretty manic. My mouth runs away from me and my mind goes in a thousand directions and then you get this Bucky.”

“Somehow I think this Bucky is really all-the-time Bucky,” Steve said.

“Harsh, Steve. Harsh. Especially in this holiday season. Aren’t you supposed to have goodwill towards man and all that crap?”

“Oh god, don’t remind me of the holidays. I haven’t gotten any of my shopping done and my mom is calling me everyday asking how many pumpkin pies she should make, which isn’t _really_ what’s she’s asking me because she knows the answer to that question already: none, because I hate pumpkin pies.”

“How can you hate pumpkin pies?”

“Very easily.”

“So what’s she _really_ asking you then? You’ve peaked my curiosity, which you so rarely do.”

Steve snorted. “Thanks for that.”

“Goodwill towards man, I’m practicing,” Bucky said.

“And you’re doing a great job. But what my mom is _really_ asking about is whether or not I’m bringing anyone home with me, someone who would enjoy her hideous pumpkin pies.”

“Ah, I see. Well since you’re calling your mother’s cooking hideous no wonder she’s on the lookout for a brand new child. I’d want to replace you too if you disparaged my cooking like that.”

“My mom is a wonderful cook, but not even she can make pumpkin pies taste good.”

“I’m beginning to wonder what sort of pumpkin pie trauma you’ve had in your life to make you feel the way you do,” Bucky said. 

“Oh, for god’s sake, can we stop talking about pumpkin pies?”

“Burying the trauma won’t make it go away, Steve.”

“Shut-up, you dick.”

Bucky’s laughter came through the phone and Steve smiled.

“What are you doing for the holidays anyway?” Steve asked. 

“I’ll be spending Christmas doing my best to make my sister’s life miserable. It’s our family tradition.”

“Wonderful.” Steve rolled his eyes.

“She’ll be doing the same,” Bucky reassured. “So everything will be merry and bright and my brother-in-law will spend the day trying not to jump out the window.”

“Sounds magical.”

“It is.”

That was when the stack of post-its had hit his head and he’d had to say goodbye to Bucky.

Steve had never found it so difficult to hang up the phone.

 

~*~

 

They had coffee together every day for the next two weeks. Steve let Bucky know when he usually took his morning and afternoon breaks and Bucky always made sure to call at those times. Steve had left it up to Bucky to call every day so far. He told himself he had no idea why he was never the one to initiate the calls, but he knew the reason if he was being truthful with himself.

He was quickly falling for Bucky and the thought that Bucky probably one hundred percent thought of him only as a friend made Steve sick to his stomach. If he let Bucky be the one to call then he knew it was because Bucky wanted to talk to him and he never had to be afraid he was bothering Bucky, or coming off as desperate for Bucky’s attention as he felt he was. He’d talk to Bucky every hour of the goddamn day if he could. He loved the sound of his voice. Soft and low at times and it would rumble straight through him, make the shivers run up and down his spine. Loud and boisterous at other times and anything Bucky said was the fucking height of hilarity to Steve, every word out of his mouth making him laugh in absolute, pure joy. Calm and soothing at other times, telling Steve things that made him feel so damn good about himself he’d be walking on cloud nine for the rest of the day.

Bucky was smart, funny, and insightful. He was pretty much everything Steve had ever wanted in a boyfriend. If he had ever bothered to make a list Bucky would tick off every single thing on it, and then some. 

The whole thing was fucking ridiculous and Steve knew it.

They’d never met, and would never meet. All of it was simply a distraction for Bucky, he’d said so from the very start. It was Steve’s own fault for letting it become more than what it was. It’d probably end soon anyway and Steve would have to be okay with that. 

But he still found himself telling Bucky things he’d never told anyone else, some things he sometimes wouldn’t even admit to himself. When Bucky told him he was a writer when Steve had finally asked what his deadline was for, he’d told Bucky that his dream had always been to be an artist and an illustrator. He’d told him about his health issues, how they limited him at times and how those limitations sometimes made him into a person he didn’t like all that much. He’d told him how he wasn’t sure how his friends could stand him when he was in one of his moods, when he felt angry and small and took it out on them. 

Bucky listened to it all, and even when he’d admit he had no good advice, no wise words, the act of simply _telling_ him, of saying it out loud and knowing Bucky listened to every word, made something settle deep down inside of Steve.

Every time Steve told himself that he should start to distance himself from Bucky, brace for the inevitable break when Bucky’s calls would stop coming, he’d tell him something deeply personal, something secret, instead. He’d open up his heart and bleed all over Bucky and Bucky would keep calling, would keep having coffee with him...and meals, and movies, and middle of the night nightmares with him and made it fucking impossible for Steve to back away from him. But Bucky kept calling months after his deadline passed and Steve started to believe there was more to them than a funny accident of wrong numbers, deadlines, and distraction. 

So one day when Bucky asked him if they could meet for real, have an actual coffee together and look at each other’s faces, Steve had instantly blurted out, “Yes! Yes. Yeah, I’d like that.” It was only after the fact, after they hung up, that he started to doubt his decision. It was all fine and dandy when Steve could stay just a voice on the other end of the phone, but the physical reality of him was a whole other story. He knew the look on people’s faces when they met him for the first time, when they were unaware of what they were getting. And it was fine, he got it, he wasn’t anyone’s ideal, he’d had twenty-nine years to get used to the fact.

He just wasn’t sure he could handle a look of disappointment on Bucky’s face.

That was probably the one thing his heart just couldn’t take.

 

~*~

 

“Come on, man,” Sam said. “What’s the big deal? You two have been talking for what, three months?”

“Four.”

“Fine, four months. You talk everyday, and everyday I hear, ‘Bucky said,’ about twenty-seven times. I think it’s fair to say you two are friends, he’s not going to care what you look like.”

“Yeah, but I do. I care.”

“Why? What’s wrong with you?” Sam asked. “And before you can say something disparaging about yourself the answer is nothing. There’s not a damn thing wrong with you.”

Steve sighed. “I know, I know.”

“And I’m not obligated to say that just because I’m your friend.”

Steve looked at Sam and shrugged. How was he going to explain why it mattered so much to him? He’d kept his feelings for Bucky pretty much under wraps, he hadn’t even admitted to Sam how much he cared for him. Sam thought he was simply infatuated with a shiny new friend, and it’d be okay if it was just that. He wouldn’t give a fuck if Bucky thought he looked like a scrawny little shit or not. But it wasn’t just friendship for him, it was so, so much more. He wanted it to be so much more. Bucky made him happy, made every bad day better. Every time he was slighted or overlooked he always thought to himself, ‘Well, why the fuck do I care about that? I have Bucky.’ 

“I’m just nervous, alright,” Steve said. “Can’t I be nervous?”

“Of course you can, I just thought you were too damn stubborn to be nervous.”

“Yeah. Well.” 

Sam laughed at the mulish tone of Steve’s voice. “You’re such a dick, how could Bucky not love you?”

“Ha ha, fuck you,” Steve said as he gave Sam the finger. 

“See. So charming.”

“I can be fucking charming. I’m charming as fuck.”

“Yeah, so go in there and show Bucky that fucking charm,” Sam said as he pointed at the coffee shop they’d walked up to as they argued.

“Jesus Christ, I hate when you do shit like that,” Steve said.

“You do know it’s the only way we get you places sometimes.”

“Well if all of you would stop taking me shitty places you wouldn’t need to argue with me to trick me into getting to them,” Steve said.

“Oh my god,” Sam said. “Shut the fuck up and go in.”

Steve tugged on his hat, the day was cold as fuck and he was bundled up in a big scarf and rainbow beanie and mittens because of course he was. He looked six years old. Godfuckingdammit. The short burst of adrenaline he’d experienced during his brief argument with Sam had completely left him. His stomach was in his throat and all he wanted to do was turn around and run back to his apartment. He couldn’t get his feet to move any further. They were at the corner of the coffee shop, he was ten feet from the door at the most, and he couldn’t lift either one of his feet.

“Sam.”

That one word spoke volumes and Sam heard it all. He wrapped his arm around Steve’s shoulders and gave him a good, tight squeeze. “It’ll be alright. He’ll love you,” he whispered in Steve’s ear. 

“But what if he doesn’t? I don’t think I can,” Steve stopped, looked up at Sam. “I don’t think I can stand it if he doesn’t.”

Sam looked back at him, his eyes kind and reassuring. “Maria and I wondered if it wasn’t that way.”

“What way?”

“You know what way,” Sam said. “The way where you’re scary in love with Bucky and this all means a hell of a lot more than a friends meet-up.”

“Damn,” Steve said. “Here I thought I was being pretty fucking cool about it all.” Sam laughed at him and it made Steve smile just a bit. He took a deep breath and said, “Give me a shove. I won’t go if you don’t give me a shove.”

Sam gave him a hard enough push to propel him several feet forward and almost smack into the large front window of the shop.

“Smooth,” Steve said over his shoulder, Sam laughed and shooed him away.

Steve sucked in a breath and walked up to the window to look inside. Maybe if Bucky wasn’t already there he could stake a claim on a table and be the one waiting on Bucky, he felt he’d have more equilibrium that way. Bucky told him if he got there first he’d be wearing a red scarf and reading a romance novel with lots of heaving bosoms on the cover. Steve’s pretty sure he fell fully in love with Bucky when he said he couldn’t pick just one favorite book when there were so many amazing romances filled with peaked nipples and turgid manhoods. Steve had told him he’d be wearing a rainbow beanie and reading the latest issue of _Black Widow_. For some reason that had made Bucky laugh for a really fucking long time and when Steve had all but demanded a reason why Bucky still never properly answered him.

And now Steve knew why. 

Sitting at a table in a red scarf and reading a book with a blonde woman with a torn bodice and a swarthy pirate on it was the most fucking gorgeous man Steve had ever seen in his life. A fucking gorgeous, _familiar_ man.

Because he followed him on Twitter.

And Instagram.

And basically every social media site he was on because he was fucking J.B. Barnes, the creator of Steve’s favorite _Black Widow_ series, the one he had tucked away in his fucking jacket pocket to be exact. 

Funny, gorgeous, talented-as-fuck J.B. Barnes was Bucky. His Bucky. 

The Bucky he was supposed to be meeting in five minutes and who he’d never meet because there was no way in fuck Steve was going to walk into that coffee shop now. Not when he knew who Bucky really was. There was no goddamn way he was putting himself through that sort of humiliation. 

He was surprised Bucky even showed up knowing Steve was more than likely a silly little fanboy who had made a total fool of himself for the past four months. 

A complete fucking fool who had somehow tricked himself into believing he could finally have something wonderful in his life. 

Steve wanted to cry. 

He wanted to stand in front of the stupid window and cry his broken heart out as the rest of Brooklyn kept moving around around him in a swarming sea of people who didn’t give a fuck about some stupid idiot with a cracked heart. He wanted to stand there until he sunk down into the ground and disappeared, but he couldn’t. He had to get the hell away from the window in case Bucky looked up from his book. 

His breathing started to pick up, and his heart started to pound as he stumbled away from the window and headed toward Sam. Thank god he was only a half a block down sitting on a bus bench and waiting for Steve to give him the signal whether he could leave or if he needed to come into the coffee shop and save him. Steve tried to say Sam’s name but nothing came out. Sam happened to look over just as Steve stood there with his mouth open and his eyes wide with shock.

“What?” Sam mouthed as he got up from the bench and started to make his way over to Steve who couldn’t do anything but wave the issue of _Black Widow_ he had in his hand. Sam looked confused as hell, and Steve was trying to find the ability to speak out loud when he heard his name being shouted behind him. He saw Sam stop and point as that painfully familiar voice said his name again, only closer. 

He didn’t want to turn around, he was too scared and humiliated to turn around, but suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, large and warm and gentle as it turned him.

“Steve, it’s you right?” Bucky asked, the smile on his face was pure insanity, bright and perfect and beautifully happy and Steve felt his entire chest constrict like he was in the middle of an asthma attack. The pain was sharp and intense and Steve felt like he could fall to his knees right there from it, but it was a fucking glorious revelation. Like a quick, hard punch to the chest telling him goddamn there he is, there’s the fucking love of your life. 

It was the best pain Steve had ever felt.

“Steve?” Bucky asked again and it was then Steve realized he hadn’t said a word and he was gaping at Bucky like a moron. 

“Yes?”

Bucky laughed. “You don’t sound very sure of that.”

Oh Christ, his laugh was perfect in person too and Steve wanted to slap him so hard right then he had to shove his right hand into his pocket to keep himself from actually doing it.

Who knew his love would burst out of him sharp and violent?

Steve wanted to laugh because it was pretty fucking fitting, actually. He’d always been an angry little rageball why should he be any different once he finally found out what love was?

“I’m sure. I’m Steve.”

Bucky’s hand had slipped down his shoulder and over his frantically beating heart to his scarf. Steve looked down as Bucky’s long fingers circled around the end of his scarf that was sticking out of his jacket. 

“I figured,” Bucky said. “With the beanie and all.”

“And the _Black Widow_ ,” Steve said as he held up the comic in his left hand.

“Ha. Yeah. That too.” 

“Figured out why you were laughing at me.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Pretty douche move if you ask me.”

“Is that why you ran?” Bucky asked as his fingers tightened around Steve’s scarf. 

Steve sighed, he might as well go for broke. “Of course it fucking is, Buck. I was already nervous enough, already worried about what a fucking disappointment I’d be to you, and then there you were. You. Being all you-ish. And hot. And fucking amazing,” Steve said as he waved the comic around. “What the fuck was I supposed to do? Wait around to see the regret in your eyes when you got a look at me?”

“Oh god, why didn’t I know this about you? I thought I knew everything about you.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“How fucking stupid you are.”

“Wow. Thanks. You’re just making this day extra special.”

Bucky gave a sharp tug on Steve’s scarf. “You. Are an idiot.”

“So you said.”

“I’m crazy in love with you,” Bucky said and Steve swore to god he started to hear ringing in his ears the second he said it. “You could’ve had a fucking hump on your back and I wouldn’t have cared. I fell in love with you five calls in, and now here you are even more gorgeous than I imagined you’d be, and that’s pretty fucking gorgeous. I mean I get paid for my imagination so it does good by me usually. Except you. Not in a million years could I have imagined you.”

“You love —”

Steve couldn’t say it, couldn’t believe it. He really was going to start to cry now, but for the most brilliant reason. Goddamn, why did being hopelessly in love make him such a damn sap?

“I do,” Bucky answered the question he couldn’t ask.

“Oh my god, Steve, kiss him already or I will,” Sam said from behind him. “This is a fucking Moment, Rogers. I’m talking capital ‘M’ Moment.”

Bucky had this beautifully confused look on his face but he was laughing at Sam even though Sam was a dick, who Steve was going to punch in the actual dick when he wasn’t so damn close to Bucky’s perfect mouth. But Steve filed all the dick punching away for later and stepped toward Bucky, stepped in to kiss his laughing mouth.

And it was perfect.

And he was in love.

With J.B. Barnes. Who was apparently Bucky Barnes? Which Steve was going to get sorted out later, much later, after there was a helluva lot more kissing, and dick punching, and telling Bucky he loved him too. 

But all that could wait. Right then he had to stand on his tiptoes as he wrapped both his arms around Bucky’s neck and kissed him until their lips were numb, until Bucky wrapped both his arms around his waist so he could pick him up off the ground and keep kissing him.

And kissing him and kissing him.

Right there on a street corner in Brooklyn.

**Author's Note:**

> It should be noted, unlike Steve, I have nothing but love for pumpkin pies. :D
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://gigi-gigi.tumblr.com/).


End file.
